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Our bodies go through a lot over a 24-hour period. You may not see it on the outside, but many biological processes are determined by circadian rhythms, including our sleep cycles. Come along to discover how certain factors can affect these rhythms and how they can teach us about how the body works.
What do Tweets tell us about stress?
Stafford Lightman and Nello Cristianini
(Professor of Medicine and Professor of Artificial Intelligence)
Each day we get up at a predetermined time and go about our everyday activities. Some of us like to get up early, some of us don’t like to go to bed till late - so called larks and owls! But all of us find that certain activities are better at certain times of day or night. Why is that? We have looked at what people’s social media activities tell us about their mood and how we can look at stress status from measuring hormones across the day. We shall discuss what all this means and how it may be important for understanding how our brain and memory respond differently during different times.
Screen time, bright lights, and rhythms that are only skin deep
Thomas Upton
(Clinical Research Fellow in Automated Sampling)
Biological rhythms are characteristic of all living things. When these rhythms are disrupted our health can suffer and we can even increase our chance of developing serious illnesses like diabetes. I will discuss how 24-hour modern life filled with bright lights can affect rhythms of hormones like melatonin and what this tells us about our internal biological clocks. Finally I will describe exciting new technology that is allowing us to gain further insights to these rhythms in everyday life.
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